Mike Pompeo: But our approach can’t just be about getting tough. That’s unlikely to achieve the outcome that we desire. We must also engage and empower the Chinese people, a dynamic, freedom-loving people who are completely distinct from the Chinese Communist Party. That begins with in-person diplomacy.
I’ve met Chinese men and women of great talent and diligence wherever I go. I’ve met with Uigurs and ethnic Cossacks who escaped Xinjiang’s concentration camps. I’ve talked with Hong Kong’s democracy leaders, from Cardinal Zen to Jimmy Lai.Two days ago in London, I met with Hong Kong freedom fighter Nathan Law, and last month in my office, I heard the stories of Tiananmen Square survivors. One of them’s here today. Wang Dan was a key student who has never stopped fighting for freedom for the Chinese people. Mr. Wang, will you please stand so that we may recognize you? Also with us today is the father of the Chinese democracy movement, Wei Jingsheng. He spent decades in Chinese labor camps for his advocacy. Mr. Wei, will you please stand?
You know, I grew up and served my time in the Army during the Cold War, and if there’s one thing I learned, Communists almost always lie. The biggest lie that they tell is to think that they speak for 1.4 billion people who are surveilled, depressed, and scared to speak out. Quite the contrary. The CCP fears the Chinese people’s honest opinions more than any foe, and save for losing their own grip on power, they have no reason to. Just think how much better off the world would be, not to mention the people inside of China, if we had been able to hear from the doctors in Wuhan and they’d been allowed to raise the alarm about the outbreak of a new and novel virus.
For too many decades, our leaders have ignored, downplayed the words of great Chinese dissidents who warned us about the nature of the regime we’re facing, and we can’t ignore it any longer. They know as well as anyone that we can never go back to the status quo. But changing the CCP’s behavior cannot be the mission of the Chinese people alone. Free nations have to work to defend freedom. It’s the furthest thing from easy, but I have faith we can do it. I have faith because we’ve done it before. We know how this goes. I have faith because the CCP is repeating some of the same mistakes that the Soviet Union made, alienating potential allies, breaking trust at home and abroad, rejecting property rights and predictable rule of law. I have faith. I have faith because of the awakening I see among other nations that know we can’t go back to the past, in the same way that we do here in America.
I’ve heard this from Brussels to Sydney to Hanoi. And most of all, I have faith we can defend freedom because of the sweet appeal of freedom itself. Look at the Hong Kongers clamoring to emigrate abroad as the CCP tightens its grip on that proud city. They wave American flags. It’s true, there are differences. Unlike the Soviet Union, China is deeply integrated into the global economy. But Beijing is more dependent on us than we are on them.
I reject the notion that we’re living in an age of inevitability, that some trap is preordained, that CCP supremacy is the future. Our approach isn’t destined to fail because America is in decline. As I said in Munich earlier this year, the free world is still winning. We just need to believe it and know it and be proud of it. People from all over the world still want to come to open societies. They come here to study, they come here to work, they come here to build a life for their families. They’re not desperate to settle in China.
It’s time. It’s great to be here today. The timing is perfect. It’s time for free nations to act. Not every nation will approach China in the same way, nor should they. Every nation will have to come to its own understanding of how to protect its own sovereignty, how to protect its own economic prosperity, and how to protect its ideals from the tentacles of the Chinese Communist Party. But I call on every leader of every nation to start by doing what America has done, to simply insist on reciprocity, to insist on transparency and accountability from the Chinese Communist Party. It’s a cadre of rulers that are far from homogenous, and these simple and powerful standards will achieve a great deal.
For too long we let the CCP set the terms of engagement, but no longer. Free nations must set the tone. We must operate on the same principles. We have to draw common lines in the sand that cannot be washed away by the CCP’s bargains or their blandishments. Indeed, this is what the United States did recently when we rejected China’s unlawful claims in the South China Sea once and for all, as we’ve urged countries to become clean countries so that their citizens’ private information doesn’t end up in the hand of the Chinese Communist Party. We did it by setting standards.